This invention relates to facsimile publishing and particularly to a facsimile publishing system and process wherein content of each publication is selected from stored page signals according to individual subscriber interests.
Basic elements of facsimile communication comprise means for transforming graphic information into electrical signals, a communications channel between a transmitter and receiver of the signals, and a signal responsive printer for transforming the signal back into graphic information in the form of a recorded image. These basic elements are present in facsimile systems for publishing and are selected and modified for economical operation on an appropriate scale. Minimally, the communications channels are accessible to editorial entities to provide adequate capacity at moderate cost and the facsimile printer can record an image of high graphic quality on both sides of ordinary newsprint for competitive economies. Ideally, the facsimile publishing system processes graphic information and reduces costs to such an extent that technological and economic constraints are removed from editorial entities to enable publication of any written work and are removed from subscribers to enable selection of any pages of interest. This ideal leaves only the limits of editorial entities to create and of subscribers to understand.
Portions of facsimile systems which have been adapted for conventional publishing include a communications satellite as a channel between distant facilities to control preparation of printing plates. Facsimile signals could be stored to control press runs by a facsimile printer, but content of such publications would still be the same for all subscribers. An ultimate reduction of scale to a single subscriber would enable publication according to his individual interests but experiments in home facsimile have not been a commercial success, partly because of cost and reliability factors and partly because of inadequate content. Home facsimile has been regarded as an adjunct to television with facsimile content complementary to television programming. As a convenience, facsimile signals were relegated to the narrow bandwidth of the blanking interval of a television signal which precluded home facsimile from becoming an alternative to conventional publishing. But even a home facsimile system with sufficient channel capacity for newspaper printing may be at a competitive disadvantage since cost, complexity, and required maintenance could limit penetration to such an extent that the system could not support the increase of content needed to justify printer purchase by the public.
Conventional publications comprising newspapers, magazines, and newsletters have evolved as integrated systems by adapting to technological and economic constraints to provide a wide spectrum of content. The publications have become identified with particular ranges of subject matter enduring values and graphic quality, and levels of expertize and specialization. Participants comprising subscribers, editorial entities, publishers, and advertizers each balance cost and value to influence content, scale of publication, materials and processes, and delivery modes. For an individual subscriber, effective information content of a publication is limited to those portions which are in accord with his interests and which he actually reads. The remainder represents wasted materials and processing. It would be efficient to select only pages and features of particular interest, but such critical selection would show that precise subject catagories at a precise level of expertize were seldom available. Thus selective capability would have to be combined with increased output of editorial entities. But an emerging independent editorial entity would encounter cost barriers of establishing or leasing publishing facilities. An editorial entity may accept employment as part of an existing publishing organization or submit manuscripts thereto but such dependence is undesirable since creative editorial entities who are motivated to analyse new concepts then defer to judgements of conservative publishers who are more motivated to maintain their traditional markets and earnings. Such limits upon choice for subscribers and upon access for editorial entities are intrinsic to the technology and economics of conventional publishing systems. Advertizing is a significant factor in publishing which benefits publishers with revenues and subscribers with reduced subscription costs. The advertizing content is conditioned by the type of publication. Newspaper advertizing tends to local retail and classified catagories in accordance with a newspaper's high local penetration and general readership. Magazine advertizing tends to be national and related to the editorial character of the magazine in accordance with its national circulation and specialized interests. A newsletter, with its limited circulation, tends to rely primarily upon subscription revenues. Advertizers attempt to target particular catagories of readers according to their editorial preferences, but such targeting is not precise insofar as the editorial policies are diverse.
A medium of communications has value according to its capacity for content and its conditioning of content. Television, for example, is most effective as a descriptive medium and can efficiently communicate phenomenal aspects of an event directly through cameras. Publications are most effective as abstract and analytical media and are more oriented toward "why" than "what". Such abstract and analytical functions are best served by the efficient logic enabled by words and other symbols. As a consequence of its function as an analytical medium, print is as potentially diverse as the many ways events can be understood through their analyses. It is useful to indicate this potential diversity by representing the subject of analysis as combinations of attributes which include subject catagory, level of expertize, significant values and premises, and literary styles. Each of these and other attributes have numerous particular subdivisions which can be enumerated by means of binary words for convenient processing by digital circuits. The number of binary words in each attribute catagory is somewhat arbitrary since different standards can be applied to result in different degrees of precision. A binary word in the attribute of "subject catagory" for example, may be the binary equivalent of a five digit Dewey decimal number while another standard may be based on seven digits. But the number of binary words in each attribute catagory is large and the number of combinations as the product of the attribute catagories is immense. It is believed that the content of conventional publications is only a minscule fraction of potential content as a consequence of technological and economic constraints upon present graphic media of mass communications.